Don’t worry! Be happy!

Well, thank goodness that’s over. We’ve got a new majority government and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say “Didn’t see that coming.” While I suspected the Liberal’s might win the election, I definitely expected a minority at best. In the end their stunning results in BC and Quebec pushed them over the top.

I expected to see the gloating of my Liberal or just plain Harper-hating friends on Facebook and I wasn’t disappointed. The first group think they’ve returned to their rightful place as the natural governing party (they’re wrong). The latter seem to think that by defeating Harper they’ll never witness another Conservative government (they’re wrong too).

I was disappointed to see how distraught a lot of my Conservative-voting friends are at this loss. Look guys, we’re supposed to be the sane ones who understand that politics isn’t a substitute for religion, family, work, booze, books and all the finer things in life. We’re not talking the fall of the Roman empire here, just some retro-tastic 70’s deficit and vote-buying action. So stop it with the weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Surprisingly, my Dipper friends seem to accept it all with equanimity, despite their party’s massive fall from grace. In fact they mostly seem to be looking forward to Justin’s expected legalisation of marijuana. They’ll soon come back down to earth when they remember he’s a Liberal and that consequently he views promises as “guidelines.”

On a personal level, I’m pretty relaxed about the idea of Prime Minister Justin. Partly it’s morbid curiosity – for the first time in its history Canada is going to be governed by an imbecile and there promises to be many moments of hilarity and humiliation. Of course it’s easy for me to say write this – I live overseas so any humiliation I might face is diluted by distance.

For what it’s worth though, we have a template for how Justin is going to govern. He’s a protege of Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario Liberals so you can expect massive deficits as he seeks to buy up the votes of the various rentier classes. There’s going to be lots of ill-thought-out symbolism but it will be tempered.by the fact that an awful lot of the people who voted for him had previously voted for Steven Harper, and his majority isn’t all that big. Oh, and you can also expect plenty of serious financial corruption and graft. It follows the Liberals around like whores in the baggage train of a Napoleonic-era army.

This election wasn’t a vote against the Tories so much as a vote against Stephen Harper. He’ll be gone shortly and a leadership race will bring excitement back to the Conservative brand. The CPC remains united, wealthy, organised and powerful. In fact, to borrow a British term, since 2004 it’s become a “One Nation Conservative Party” that’s capable of winning seats in every region of the country. It’ll be back.